UK hotel chain apologizes over ‘Free Palestine’ TV message

The British hotel chain Travelodge apologized to an American-Jewish guest for a “Free Palestine” welcome greeting that staff displayed on his room’s television screen, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

A Travelodge spokesperson told the BBC that the chain’s chief executive Jo Boydell “has spoken with the guest to express our apologies for their experience” earlier this month. The guest, identified by The Jewish News of London as 24-year-old Sruly Fogel from New York, said he had been visiting the U.K. for a wedding and the incident left him “really uncomfortable.”

Fogel shared online a photograph of the greeting, and it was reposted thousands of times, often with commentary on how Jews are being targeted in the U.K. by antisemites under the guise of anti-Zionism.

Travelodge has been unable to identify the staffer responsible for the message; it is now planning to roll out antisemitism training for staff in response, the BBC reported.

The hotel chain reported the incident to the police and checked all rooms in the Manor House hotel and other hotels across the country, finding the “Free Palestine” message only appeared in the Jewish guest’s room, according to the report,

Last week, the Campaign Against Antisemitism watchdog group described antisemitism as “a national emergency” in the U.K. after figures showed 255 antisemitic incidents recorded in May, up from 148 in April.

According to the Community Security Trust, an average of 308 antisemitic incidents per month were recorded in Britain in 2025.

The United Kingdom recorded the highest per capita rate of real-world antisemitic assaults among countries with large Jewish communities in 2025, according to a report by Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism. The report documented 121 assaults in a Jewish population of roughly 300,000.

The total number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the United Kingdom—including threats, vandalism and intimidation—reached 3,700 in 2025, the Community Security Trust said earlier this year.

That figure represented a 4% increase from the 3,556 incidents recorded in 2024. However, it remained 14% below the record-high total of 4,298 antisemitic incidents documented in 2023.